The U.S. government ordered app stores to stop distributing or updating TikTok earlier this month, responding to President Donald Trump’s August executive order. This order banned everyone in the U.S. from doing business with TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, allegedly due to security concerns.
However, in his ruling on Sunday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols considered that TikTok had not had enough opportunity to defend itself before Trump ordered the sweeping ban. The judge has therefore granted a preliminary injunction preventing the removal of TikTok from app stores — at least, for now.
Responding to the ruling, the U.S. Department of Commerce maintained Trump’s order “is fully consistent with the law and promotes legitimate national security interests.” As such, it “intends to vigorously defend the [order] and…implementation efforts from legal challenges” despite having lost today’s battle.
TikTok was markedly happier with the result.
“We’re pleased that the court agreed with our legal arguments and issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok app ban,” said TikTok in a statement to Mashable. “We will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees. At the same time, we will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the President gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement.”
This was in reference to a proposed deal with Oracle and Walmart, which would see them share a 20 percent stake in TikTok. The headquarters for TikTok Global would also be expanded and maintained in the U.S.
Trump’s administration has maintained a persistent vendetta against TikTok for months now, even ordering ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations. The U.S. president has repeatedly raised security concerns regarding the video-sharing app, claiming that it could give American users’ personal information with the Chinese government. TikTok has strenuously denied these allegations.
Facebook and Twitter already share user data with various governments including the U.S. Transfer of EU citizens’ personal data to the U.S. was also recently restricted due to concerns about American government surveillance.
This ruling isn’t too much of a surprise. When previously questioning the U.S. Justice Department on why it thought TikTok had been given adequate opportunity to respond, Nichols stated that the government’s decision to ban the app “was largely a unilateral decision with very little opportunity for plaintiffs to be heard.”
Mashable
